A review by mitskacir
How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

4.0

I learned so much about Rastafari from this book, and it was worth the read just to expand my horizons a bit. But it was also a gripping read and very well written - I loved how much joy came through the pages as well as how much pain. Safiya’s mother in particular was an amazing character, her love and goodness so well manifested that her betrayals and weaknesses were so painful to witness. The only reason this isn’t a 5 stars from me is that I think it was longer than it needed to be - some parts were repetitive and only added more evidence to points that were already well articulated and established. It was also overly poetic in places, but alas I struggle so much with prose written by poets, so this is definitely a me problem and probably won’t be an issue for other people.

I also thought a lot about the memoir Educated while reading this book. It would be interesting to read them in conversation with each other.